Quickstart and Ubuntu 11.10 - Don't upgrade

I've been trying to keep Quickstart versions in sync with Ubuntu's release cycle, and now that Ubuntu 11.10 is out, we're up for a new version.

The short version is, I don't recommend upgrading to 11.10, without making a snapshot you can roll-back to.

It may be some time before a major new version of Quickstart comes out. For newer users, I might download all the updates for the 1.0 version, and turn off the "Upgrade to 11.10" button and release it as version 1.1.

After upgrading my desktop to 11.10 and trying Gnome 3, Unity, and Gnome 2 (Gnome Classic) on Ubuntu 11.10, it's clear that Ubuntu's GUI is totally unusable for power users. Things like "min/max" buttons, Start menus, task bars, shortcut and notification bars are gone in Unity and Gnome 3. Ubuntu has been tooled for the most basic of users used to a smartphone interface. I wouldn't use this for a dev env, so I won't ask you to either :-)

Here's a rundown of what Ubuntu 11.10 ships with:
- Ubuntu's "Unity" is far to simple for a development environment
- Gnome 3 is also too simple, but with more polish. (Linus called it "crazy")
- Gnome 2 (which is what we're using now) is being discontinued, and after upgrading was broken.

So that leaves Quickstart in a bit of a twitch. There are some alternatives we can consider:
- Ubuntu with Gnome 3 - Plus alot of tweaking and pushing and pulling. This doesn't seem feasible. The Linux Mint distro was planning to extend Gnome 3 in future work.
- Kubuntu with KDE 4 - Linus abandoned this for Gnome 3, but that doesn't mean it's bad.
- Xubuntu with XFCE - (this is where Linus went). This is the most classic of the 3.
- Debian/Mint/distro-de-jour here - these will inevitably use Gnome, KDE, or XFCE

There is a center of gravity around Ubuntu that is nice. It's easy to find support and documentation. I'm going to start working with Kubuntu and Xubuntu and see what comes out of it. This is also a great opportunity to rework the install scripts in Puppet.

Anyways, there's alot in the works, and it will only get better from here :-)

Comments

I tried Lubuntu awhile back https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu and liked its speed. I ran into trouble when installing QuickStart but I never really troubleshot why. I've actually gone back to 10.10 for now.

At our next local Drupal meetup here in Brevard County, Florida, we have asked everyone to already have downloaded the Quickstart 1.0 and VirtualBox as per the instructions in Drupal Quickstart: Pre-made Development Environment. In preparation for this task, I have been researching about Quickstart and came upon Mike's post Quickstart and Ubuntu 11.10 - Don't upgrade where he doesn't recommend using Ubuntu 11.10, but mentions Xubuntu as being a better alternative. That brought me to your post, so I am wondering if you have installed Quickstart 1.0 on your Xubuntu 11.10, and if so, how did it go? Were there any issues? I would appreciate any tips on the installation of Quickstart 1.0 with Xubuntu 11.10, as I want to have this all ready to go before our next local meetup. Thanks

I am on 11.10 and haven't noticed much difference... The min/max buttons are still there; you just have to hover to get to them. To be honest, I haven't use Ubuntu that much so that could be why I'm not noticing a lot of change but it doesn't seem all that different to me. Much of what I do with dev is at the command line, anyway, so the rest of the OS doesn't matter too much. :)

I decided to go dual-boot instead of using Quickstart because my little laptop struggled with the whole OS inside an OS concept but I'm thinking of putting Quickstart on my desktop so am still interested in its future.

My vote would be for Kubuntu. But I have a bias as a Qt programmer, since KDE is written using Qt. Kubuntu has a pretty nice programming environment even apart from the Netbeans, Eclipse, etc. that is added in via Quickstart. And it seems like it has a pretty strong community.

Out of curiosity, since 10.04 is still LTS, why not just support LTS for use with QuickStart?

You could create a branch, leave your 11.04 version in place, and then go back to supporting 10.04. Then you can keep QuickStart moving forward until Unity or whatever else shakes out and becomes more usable.

also, the key Aegir people, mig5 and anarcat are Debian users, Anarcat has just become an official Debian Developer

thing is, its all about Dev Ops, being a developer AND a operations person, especially when you are making small-medium sized sites, not everyone can afford Pantheon or Acquia Dev Cloud and want something more than a App Installer courtesy of Godaddy

if Ubuntu is the next Microsoft Windows Experience than I'm heading a bit further upstream and will tool-up on Debian, and judging by the latest performance tests, Debian is a better bet than even Xubuntu

ps: have just tried to install the Quickstart scripts direct onto Xubuntu - haven't quite got there yet, but most of it should just work - minus Gnome and Ubuntu fat - although on Xubuntu the reboots dont happen ...

if Ubuntu is the next Microsoft Windows Experience than I'm heading a bit further upstream and will tool-up on Debian, and judging by the latest performance tests, Debian is a better bet than even Xubuntu

I agree and disagree. I don't see Ubuntu becoming the next Microsoft Windows Experience. Actually Ubuntu has been losing a lot of shares lately, as people are switching to Mint, which is still Debian (with a lot of Ubuntu in it). I actually got Mint on a VPS and must say it is really nice, even though I'm still a Fedora guy through and through.

Gearing everything towards being as "generic" Debian as possible would most likely be the best route to take. It might be a little more complex though and the better alternative might be a generic package that installs Drupal, then a more distro specific dependency that handles the binaries.